Lentil Underground (31 page)

ROCKY MOUNTAIN FRONT.
The transition zone between the Rocky Mountains and the mixed-grass prairie.

SALINE SEEP.
An expanse of salt crystals forming when underground salty water reaches the soil surface and evaporates.

SPELT.
Ancient, hulled wheat variety with a lower gluten content than conventional wheat.

SPLIT PRODUCTION.
Refers to farmers who grow a portion of their crop under organic certification but also farm noncertified land, sometimes using chemicals not allowed under organic regulations.

SUMMER FALLOW.
The practice of allowing land to lie idle during the growing season. Also refers to the land under this form of management.

SUN TIMES.
Periodical published by the Alternative Energy Resources Organization, from 1976 to the present.

SWATHER.
A farm implement that cuts hay or small grain or pulse crops and forms them into a windrow.

TILLAGE.
The mechanical manipulation of soil, generally for the purpose of loosening the soil, creating a seedbed, controlling weeds, or incorporating amendments.

TRANSGENIC.
Containing one or more genes transferred from another species through genetic engineering.

TRIPLE BOTTOM LINE.
Phrase coined by corporate responsibility advocate John Elkington to describe an accounting framework with three dimensions: social, financial, and environmental (or people, profit, and planet).

UNDERSOWING.
Sowing one crop into a field in which another crop has already established, so that both crops develop at the same time.

VALUES-BASED SUPPLY CHAINS.
Supply chains, or wholesale, non-direct-market channels where consumers receive information about the social, environmental, or community values incorporated into the production of a product, or the farm or ranch producing it.

ZERO TILLAGE.
A system of planting crops without tilling the soil with a plow, disk, chisel, or other tillage implement.

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For now, Jody was stuck in the same position Dave had been decades ago—describing how his beef fit the organic paradigm with words like “natural,” since it wasn't officially certified. But that was about to change. Meat had been included when the USDA passed its new
National Organic Program
rules in 2002, so once Jody's pastureland completed the program's requisite three-year transition period, his beef would became officially, certifiably organic.

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